Photo by Sarah Elmquist
n Riverway Learning Community student Solana Marrs enjoyed a sandwich from the school’s new sandwich bar. All the ingredients for Riverway’s new lunch program are locally produced and organic, part of a series of new projects the school is undertaking. |
Riverway Learning Community smells good. Really good.
Since school began, neighbors of the Minnesota City charter have had a call for the noon meal that rings much louder than any cowbell clanking. The aroma of made-from-scratch, organic, and locally-produced meals now wafts from the homey building, enticing teachers and students alike to the lunchroom.
The school's switch to freshly prepared organic foods has reversed an age-old rite of school passage: these kids actually like school lunch.
But the new food program at Riverway goes far beyond the belly, pulling the family-style school forward into the future of education. The food program is part of a series of projects funded through a federal building grant, including solar panels, interactive "smart board" projectors, and a rainwater collection system for watering the community garden.
The other projects will be completed over the next year, with the new food program having been implemented when the school year began two weeks ago. And while school leaders are still fine-tuning the program and food sources, they say they've been off to a great start.
"We've already seen a lot of impact," said assistant teacher Jamie Harper of the food program. "Kids are saying ‘I really want to eat at my school now.'"
The impact, said Harper, of eating on a real plate, drinking milk from a real glass, means that lunch has a family closeness that it didn't have before.
"It's amazing," said Principal Laurie Krause. "You can sense it in the air. It's a beautiful thing."
Eventually the students will be involved with growing some of the produce in their community garden and elsewhere. Krause said they will likely also help with embroidering or sewing cloth tablecloths and napkins, making mealtime an even more family occasion.
Each day, students can choose from a hot, homemade meal, along with a make-your-own salad and sandwich bar. "That's one of the exciting things," said Krause, "to see students going for the salads."
So far they've enjoyed things like spaghetti with sautéed veggies, homemade pizza and chili, and stir-fried chicken. Thursday's lineup included fresh green beans and a chicken enchilada dish, complete with a glass of milk and orange slices.
But the program is not just about providing healthy meals that aren't overly processed with high fat, salt and calorie contents. With locally produced foods, the effort will also show students some real life lessons in sustainability, this year's school theme.
Learning about sustainability at Riverway won't be your typical textbook stuff. Studying the new things going on at school, like how the solar lighting works and how eating locally produced foods affects their bodies and the local economy, will be more than just reading chapters. This hands-on, project-orientated learning is what Riverway is all about. At Riverway, they believe the classroom has no walls, that the whole community is their playing field for learning.
"That's one of the values of the school," said Harper, "the idea of interdisciplinary, project-based learning." He said that studying the science of solar energy while basking in the new panels in the gym will mean more to the students, because it's real.
This kind of learning, said Harper, forces the students to start asking questions. "How do their actions, as individuals, affect other people and the natural environment? These are questions we want them to be asking."
Jared Merkel, the school's new food service manager, is wholly committed to the idea that the projects are teaching kids about real, day-to-day, sustainable choices. "Sustainability -- it's part of every aspect of our lives," he said. "In every action we do, there's something we can do better."
Other aspects to the food program have to do with the waste generated. Harper said that the school did a garbage assessment last year, and that he estimates the school is throwing out about a fifth of what it used to. Also, the leftover food scraps are used either as compost for the community garden or as animal feed for a local farm.
Krause said that the young school has always had an eye on the connections people and communities can make over a good meal. At the school's annual meeting, it's been serving a nice meal, aimed at bringing the community together. "We're attempting to build a stronger community by sharing food and ideas and thoughts," she said.
Last year during the holiday season, a fundraising pot grew big enough for everyone to have a bite. Students gathered ideas and learned about ingredients to really cook various dishes from scratch. From there, they went shopping. Each child then brought home a box with a turkey or ham and ingredients to get started on their family meal.
With its open air, multiaged classrooms, Riverway has already been touted as being ahead of the game as far as the future of education. Another school is interested in having Riverway manage its food program, and some of the projects coming in the next year will reach many more children far into the future.
"The ripple effect that we can have with this program is just incredible," said Krause. "To see that again -- so many things are possible if we can just have the courage to dream about them."
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